This paper calls into question a consensus belief that the term “ti”帝 (and the term “shang-ti” 上帝), as used in the Shang oracle texts, denoted a supreme deity. Such an interpretation of the term is entirely satisfactory for textual sources postdating the first century of Chou rule, but the evidence of Shang texts suggests that term ti was employed therein as a corporate term denoting deities collectively, as a generic term referring to members of the Shang pantheon individually but not by name, or as an honorific term for the father of the Shang ruler. By exploring the semantics of the term ti through Shang usage and cognate words, a speculative root meaning of “father” is proposed, the graph being a representation of the ancestral altar or of altar figures. If this theory is valid, it calls into question the extent to which proto-bureaucratic features can be ascribed to the Shang pantheon. It also suggests that the concept of supreme divinity in China was either derived from the pre-conquest religion of the Chou, centered upon the deity T'ien, or through a post-conquest universalization of the Chou religion.

The 1980 discovery at Chou-yüan (site of an important Western Chou palace complex) of two small human heads with Caucasoid features sculpted from mollusk shell raises questions concerning East-West contact during the early Chou period (roughly eighth century B.C.E.). A similar head from Anyang dating to about half a millennium earlier suggests that the contact was of long standing and that it centered in the Shang and Chou courts. On top of one of the Chou heads is engraved the oracle bone form of the graph for wu, namely , identifying the figure as a ritual specialist. Normally wu is translated as “shaman,” but it is here proposed that “mage” be adopted as a more accurate equivalent. Various types of evidence are adduced in support of this proposal, including the Old Sinitic reconstruction of wu, i.e., *mᵞag, which indicates a direct linkage with Old Persian maguš, the original source of Magianism.

The location of the Chu core area during the reign of King Wu (740-690) is a question rendered uncertain by two issues: 1) the date of the move from Danyang to Ying, and 2) the locations of these capitals. In the traditional literature, both were considered to have been situated along the Yangzi, in southwest Hubei. Recent suggestions, on the other hand, place Danyang in either the Dan Valley (southwest Henan) or west-central Hubei (Nanzhang or Yicheng counties); and arguments have been offered that Ying was also in the Yicheng area.

In the arguments both for and against these hypotheses, a commonly employed assumption is that Chu military activities under King Wu hold the potential for indicating the area from which the campaigns were launched. The present paper analyzes one of these campaigns, the military encounter at Pusao between Chu and Yun, east of the Han River (Handong), in 701. This episode is noteworthy for the number of states and placenames that occur in the Zuozhuan account of it.

The present study suggests that in plotting the states and placenames appearing in this account, geographical sources dating from the sixth century through the early Qing that are frequently cited in defense of the Southern School (Yangzi Valley) view exhibit several deficiencies. Correcting these leads to the conclusion that regardless of whether Danyang or Ying was the capital at the time, in 701 the Chu force could well have set forth from the Nanzhang/Yicheng region.

In recent decades, divination records written on bamboo slips have been discovered at such sites as Wangshan, Tianxingguan and Baoshan, all in Hubei province. These slips derive from the ancient state of Chu and date between 350 and 300 B.C. In this paper, the author suggests that these divination records are of two types: an “initial divination” and a “follow-up divination.” He also demonstrates that the “initial divination” type, which is the fuller form, usually consists of five discrete portions: a Prologue, First Charge, First Prognostication, Second Charge, and Second Prognostication; and provides detailed notes on the terminology found in each portion. Finally, he considers such associated questions as whether the Second Charge is a prayer or divination, whether divination was stated in the form of a question or statement, and the nature of the “follow-up divination.”

Tradition says that Yu, first ruler of the Xia Dynasty, was chosen by the “sage emperor” Shun as Shun's successor. The “Modern Text” Bamboo Annals (Jinben Zhushu jinian) dates this act of choice to the fourteenth year of Shun. (With E. L. Shaughnessy, “On the Authenticity of the Bamboo Annals,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46 (1986), we accept this text as at least in part the text found in a royal tomb of Wei in A.D. 281.) Following D. Pankenier's argument (“Mozi and the Dates of Xia, Shang and Zhou,” Early China 9–10 [1983–85]), we date this event to 1953 B.C., the year of a dramatic five-planet conjunction. (K. Pang independently dated this conjunction to Yu's reign in his article “Extraordinary Floods in Early Chinese History and their Absolute Dates,” Journal of Hydrology 96 [1987].)

We next use K. Pang's discovery (“Extraordinary Floods”) that there was an eclipse of the sun on 16 October 1876 B.C., that exactly satisfies descriptions in the Zuo zhuan (Zhao 17) and in the Bamboo Annals for Xia, Zhong Kang fifth year, of an eclipse associated with the (post-Han Shang shu) “Punitive Expedition of Yin” (except for the day-cycle in the Annals, which we assume to be a later calculation); i.e., it occurred on the first of the ninth lunar month (Xia calendar), the sun's location at the time (188å) was in lunar lodge Fang, and the eclipse was visible in the probable Xia capital area. No other eclipse within many centuries satisfies these criteria.

Extending D. Nivison's theory (“The Dates of Western Chou,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43 (1983)) that Western Zhou royal calendars began only after completion of mourning, i.e., two years after accession, we then assume that there were similar two-year mourning breaks between Xia royal calendars (possibly reflected in the irregular interregnums in the present Annals). For a demonstration of this chronology, see the chart on page 94.